Nags
eighteen
to the door are driven.
Pushkin - Eugene Oneigin
five paces more they pass,
And Lenski, closing his left eye,
Took aim--but as immediately
Oneguine fired--Alas! alas!
The poet's hour hath sounded--See!
He drops his pistol silently.
XXIX
He on his bosom gently placed
His hand, and fell. His clouded eye
Not agony, but death expressed.
So from the mountain lazily
The avalanche of snow first bends,
Then glittering in the sun descends.
The cold sweat bursting from his brow,
To the youth Eugene hurried now--
Gazed on him, called him. Useless care!
He was no more! The youthful bard
For evermore had disappeared.
The storm was hushed. The blossom fair
Was withered ere the morning light--
The altar flame was quenched in night.
XXX
Tranquil he lay, and strange to view
The peace which on his forehead beamed,
His breast was riddled through and through,
The blood gushed from the wound and steamed
Ere this but one brief moment beat
That heart with inspiration sweet
And enmity and hope and love--
The blood boiled and the passions strove.
Now, as in a deserted house,
All dark and silent hath become;
The inmate is for ever dumb,
The windows whitened, shutters close--
Whither departed is the host?
God knows! The very trace is lost.
XXXI
'Tis sweet the foe to aggravate
With epigrams impertinent,
Sweet to behold him obstinate,
His butting horns in anger bent,
The glass unwittingly inspect
And blush to own himself reflect.
Sweeter it is, my friends, if he
Howl like a dolt: 'tis meant for me!
But sweeter still it is to arrange
For him an honourable grave,
At his pale brow a shot to have,
Placed at the customary range;
But home his body to despatch
Can scarce in sweetness be a match.
XXXII
Well, if your pistol ball by chance
The comrade of your youth should strike,
Who by a haughty word or glance
Or any trifle else ye like
You o'er your wine insulted hath--
Or even overcome by wrath
Scornfully challenged you afield--
Tell me, of sentiments concealed
Which in your spirit dominates,
When motionless your gaze beneath
He lies, upon his forehead death,
And slowly life coagulates--
When deaf and silent he doth lie
Heedless of your despairing cry?
XXXIII
Eugene, his pistol yet in hand
And with remorseful anguish filled,
Gazing on Lenski's corse did stand--
Zaretski shouted: "Why, he's killed! "--
Killed! at this dreadful exclamation
Oneguine went with trepidation
And the attendants called in haste.
Most carefully Zaretski placed
Within his sledge the stiffened corse,
And hurried home his awful freight.
Conscious of death approximate,
Loud paws the earth each panting horse,
His bit with foam besprinkled o'er,
And homeward like an arrow tore.
XXXIV
My friends, the poet ye regret!
When hope's delightful flower but bloomed
In bud of promise incomplete,
The manly toga scarce assumed,
He perished. Where his troubled dreams,
And where the admirable streams
Of youthful impulse, reverie,
Tender and elevated, free?
And where tempestuous love's desires,
The thirst of knowledge and of fame,
Horror of sinfulness and shame,
Imagination's sacred fires,
Ye shadows of a life more high,
Ye dreams of heavenly poesy?
XXXV
Perchance to benefit mankind,
Or but for fame he saw the light;
His lyre, to silence now consigned,
Resounding through all ages might
Have echoed to eternity.
With worldly honours, it may be,
Fortune the poet had repaid.
It may be that his martyred shade
Carried a truth divine away;
That, for the century designed,
Had perished a creative mind,
And past the threshold of decay,
He ne'er shall hear Time's eulogy,
The blessings of humanity.
XXXVI
Or, it may be, the bard had passed
A life in common with the rest;
Vanished his youthful years at last,
The fire extinguished in his breast,
In many things had changed his life--
The Muse abandoned, ta'en a wife,
Inhabited the country, clad
In dressing-gown, a cuckold glad:
A life of fact, not fiction, led--
At forty suffered from the gout,
Eaten, drunk, gossiped and grown stout:
And finally, upon his bed
Had finished life amid his sons,
Doctors and women, sobs and groans.
XXXVII
But, howsoe'er his lot were cast,
Alas! the youthful lover slain,
Poetical enthusiast,
A friendly hand thy life hath ta'en!
There is a spot the village near
Where dwelt the Muses' worshipper,
Two pines have joined their tangled roots,
A rivulet beneath them shoots
Its waters to the neighbouring vale.
There the tired ploughman loves to lie,
The reaping girls approach and ply
Within its wave the sounding pail,
And by that shady rivulet
A simple tombstone hath been set.
XXXVIII
There, when the rains of spring we mark
Upon the meadows showering,
The shepherd plaits his shoe of bark,(66)
Of Volga fishermen doth sing,
And the young damsel from the town,
For summer to the country flown,
Whene'er across the plain at speed
Alone she gallops on her steed,
Stops at the tomb in passing by;
The tightened leathern rein she draws,
Aside she casts her veil of gauze
And reads with rapid eager eye
The simple epitaph--a tear
Doth in her gentle eye appear.
[Note 66: In Russia and other northern countries rude shoes are
made of the inner bark of the lime tree. ]
XXXIX
And meditative from the spot
She leisurely away doth ride,
Spite of herself with Lenski's lot
Longtime her mind is occupied.
She muses: "What was Olga's fate?
Longtime was her heart desolate
Or did her tears soon cease to flow?
And where may be her sister now?
Where is the outlaw, banned by men,
Of fashionable dames the foe,
The misanthrope of gloomy brow,
By whom the youthful bard was slain? "--
In time I'll give ye without fail
A true account and in detail.
XL
But not at present, though sincerely
I on my chosen hero dote;
Though I'll return to him right early,
Just at this moment I cannot.
Years have inclined me to stern prose,
Years to light rhyme themselves oppose,
And now, I mournfully confess,
In rhyming I show laziness.
As once, to fill the rapid page
My pen no longer finds delight,
Other and colder thoughts affright,
Sterner solicitudes engage,
In worldly din or solitude
Upon my visions such intrude.
XLI
Fresh aspirations I have known,
I am acquainted with fresh care,
Hopeless are all the first, I own,
Yet still remains the old despair.
Illusions, dream, where, where your sweetness?
Where youth (the proper rhyme is fleetness)?
And is it true her garland bright
At last is shrunk and withered quite?
And is it true and not a jest,
Not even a poetic phrase,
That vanished are my youthful days
(This joking I used to protest),
Never for me to reappear--
That soon I reach my thirtieth year?
XLII
And so my noon hath come! If so,
I must resign myself, in sooth;
Yet let us part in friendship, O
My frivolous and jolly youth.
I thank thee for thy joyfulness,
Love's tender transports and distress,
For riot, frolics, mighty feeds,
And all that from thy hand proceeds--
I thank thee. In thy company,
With tumult or contentment still
Of thy delights I drank my fill,
Enough! with tranquil spirit I
Commence a new career in life
And rest from bygone days of strife.
XLIII
But pause! Thou calm retreats, farewell,
Where my days in the wilderness
Of languor and of love did tell
And contemplative dreaminess;
And thou, youth's early inspiration,
Invigorate imagination
And spur my spirit's torpid mood!
Fly frequent to my solitude,
Let not the poet's spirit freeze,
Grow harsh and cruel, dead and dry,
Eventually petrify
In the world's mortal revelries,
Amid the soulless sons of pride
And glittering simpletons beside;
XLIV
Amid sly, pusillanimous
Spoiled children most degenerate
And tiresome rogues ridiculous
And stupid censors passionate;
Amid coquettes who pray to God
And abject slaves who kiss the rod;
In haunts of fashion where each day
All with urbanity betray,
Where harsh frivolity proclaims
Its cold unfeeling sentences;
Amid the awful emptiness
Of conversation, thought and aims--
In that morass where you and I
Wallow, my friends, in company!
END OF CANTO THE SIXTH
CANTO THE SEVENTH
Moscow
Moscow, Russia's darling daughter,
Where thine equal shall we find? '
Dmitrieff
Who can help loving mother Moscow?
Baratynski (Feasts)
A journey to Moscow! To see the world!
Where better?
Where man is not.
Griboyedoff (Woe from Wit)
Canto The Seventh
[Written 1827-1828 at Moscow, Mikhailovskoe, St. Petersburg
and Malinniki. ]
I
Impelled by Spring's dissolving beams,
The snows from off the hills around
Descended swift in turbid streams
And flooded all the level ground.
A smile from slumbering nature clear
Did seem to greet the youthful year;
The heavens shone in deeper blue,
The woods, still naked to the view,
Seemed in a haze of green embowered.
The bee forth from his cell of wax
Flew to collect his rural tax;
The valleys dried and gaily flowered;
Herds low, and under night's dark veil
Already sings the nightingale.
II
Mournful is thine approach to me,
O Spring, thou chosen time of love!
What agitation languidly
My spirit and my blood doth move,
What sad emotions o'er me steal
When first upon my cheek I feel
The breath of Spring again renewed,
Secure in rural quietude--
Or, strange to me is happiness?
Do all things which to mirth incline.
And make a dark existence shine
Inflict annoyance and distress
Upon a soul inert and cloyed? --
And is all light within destroyed?
III
Or, heedless of the leaves' return
Which Autumn late to earth consigned,
Do we alone our losses mourn
Of which the rustling woods remind?
Or, when anew all Nature teems,
Do we foresee in troubled dreams
The coming of life's Autumn drear.
For which no springtime shall appear?
Or, it may be, we inly seek,
Wafted upon poetic wing,
Some other long-departed Spring,
Whose memories make the heart beat quick
With thoughts of a far distant land,
Of a strange night when the moon and--
IV
'Tis now the season! Idlers all,
Epicurean philosophers,
Ye men of fashion cynical,
Of Levshin's school ye followers,(67)
Priams of country populations
And dames of fine organisations,
Spring summons you to her green bowers,
'Tis the warm time of labour, flowers;
The time for mystic strolls which late
Into the starry night extend.
Quick to the country let us wend
In vehicles surcharged with freight;
In coach or post-cart duly placed
Beyond the city-barriers haste.
[Note 67: Levshin--a contemporary writer on political economy. ]
V
Thou also, reader generous,
The chaise long ordered please employ,
Abandon cities riotous,
Which in the winter were a joy:
The Muse capricious let us coax,
Go hear the rustling of the oaks
Beside a nameless rivulet,
Where in the country Eugene yet,
An idle anchorite and sad,
A while ago the winter spent,
Near young Tattiana resident,
My pretty self-deceiving maid--
No more the village knows his face,
For there he left a mournful trace.
VI
Let us proceed unto a rill,
Which in a hilly neighbourhood
Seeks, winding amid meadows still,
The river through the linden wood.
The nightingale there all night long,
Spring's paramour, pours forth her song
The fountain brawls, sweetbriers bloom,
And lo! where lies a marble tomb
And two old pines their branches spread--
"_Vladimir Lenski lies beneath,
Who early died a gallant death_,"
Thereon the passing traveller read:
"_The date, his fleeting years how long--
Repose in peace, thou child of song_. "
VII
Time was, the breath of early dawn
Would agitate a mystic wreath
Hung on a pine branch earthward drawn
Above the humble urn of death.
Time was, two maidens from their home
At eventide would hither come,
And, by the light the moonbeams gave,
Lament, embrace upon that grave.
But now--none heeds the monument
Of woe: effaced the pathway now:
There is no wreath upon the bough:
Alone beside it, gray and bent,
As formerly the shepherd sits
And his poor basten sandal knits.
VIII
My poor Vladimir, bitter tears
Thee but a little space bewept,
Faithless, alas! thy maid appears,
Nor true unto her sorrow kept.
Another could her heart engage,
Another could her woe assuage
By flattery and lover's art--
A lancer captivates her heart!
A lancer her soul dotes upon:
Before the altar, lo! the pair,
Mark ye with what a modest air
She bows her head beneath the crown;(68)
Behold her downcast eyes which glow,
Her lips where light smiles come and go!
[Note 68: The crown used in celebrating marriages in Russia
according to the forms of the Eastern Church. See Note 28. ]
IX
My poor Vladimir! In the tomb,
Passed into dull eternity,
Was the sad poet filled with gloom,
Hearing the fatal perfidy?
Or, beyond Lethe lulled to rest,
Hath the bard, by indifference blest,
Callous to all on earth become--
Is the world to him sealed and dumb?
The same unmoved oblivion
On us beyond the grave attends,
The voice of lovers, foes and friends,
Dies suddenly: of heirs alone
Remains on earth the unseemly rage,
Whilst struggling for the heritage.
X
Soon Olga's accents shrill resound
No longer through her former home;
The lancer, to his calling bound,
Back to his regiment must roam.
The aged mother, bathed in tears,
Distracted by her grief appears
When the hour came to bid good-bye--
But my Tattiana's eyes were dry.
Only her countenance assumed
A deadly pallor, air distressed;
When all around the entrance pressed,
To say farewell, and fussed and fumed
Around the carriage of the pair--
Tattiana gently led them there.
XI
And long her eyes as through a haze
After the wedded couple strain;
Alas! the friend of childish days
Away, Tattiana, hath been ta'en.
Thy dove, thy darling little pet
On whom a sister's heart was set
Afar is borne by cruel fate,
For evermore is separate.
She wanders aimless as a sprite,
Into the tangled garden goes
But nowhere can she find repose,
Nor even tears afford respite,
Of consolation all bereft--
Well nigh her heart in twain was cleft.
XII
In cruel solitude each day
With flame more ardent passion burns,
And to Oneguine far away
Her heart importunately turns.
She never more his face may view,
For was it not her duty to
Detest him for a brother slain?
The poet fell; already men
No more remembered him; unto
Another his betrothed was given;
The memory of the bard was driven
Like smoke athwart the heaven blue;
Two hearts perchance were desolate
And mourned him still. Why mourn his fate?
XIII
'Twas eve. 'Twas dusk. The river speeds
In tranquil flow. The beetle hums.
Already dance to song proceeds;
The fisher's fire afar illumes
The river's bank. Tattiana lone
Beneath the silver of the moon
Long time in meditation deep
Her path across the plain doth keep--
Proceeds, until she from a hill
Sees where a noble mansion stood,
A village and beneath, a wood,
A garden by a shining rill.
She gazed thereon, and instant beat
Her heart more loudly and more fleet.
XIV
She hesitates, in doubt is thrown--
"Shall I proceed, or homeward flee?
He is not there: I am not known:
The house and garden I would see. "
Tattiana from the hill descends
With bated breath, around she bends
A countenance perplexed and scared.
She enters a deserted yard--
Yelping, a pack of dogs rush out,
But at her shriek ran forth with noise
The household troop of little boys,
Who with a scuffle and a shout
The curs away to kennel chase,
The damsel under escort place.
XV
"Can I inspect the mansion, please? "
Tattiana asks, and hurriedly
Unto Anicia for the keys
The family of children hie.
Anicia soon appears, the door
Opens unto her visitor.
Into the lonely house she went,
Wherein a space Oneguine spent.
She gazed--a cue, forgotten long,
Doth on the billiard table rest,
Upon the tumbled sofa placed,
A riding whip. She strolls along.
The beldam saith: "The hearth, by it
The master always used to sit.
XVI
"Departed Lenski here to dine
In winter time would often come.
Please follow this way, lady mine,
This is my master's sitting-room.
'Tis here he slept, his coffee took,
Into accounts would sometimes look,
A book at early morn perused.
The room my former master used.
On Sundays by yon window he,
Spectacles upon nose, all day
Was wont with me at cards to play.
God save his soul eternally
And grant his weary bones their rest
Deep in our mother Earth's chill breast! "
XVII
Tattiana's eyes with tender gleam
On everything around her gaze,
Of priceless value all things seem
And in her languid bosom raise
A pleasure though with sorrow knit:
The table with its lamp unlit,
The pile of books, with carpet spread
Beneath the window-sill his bed,
The landscape which the moonbeams fret,
The twilight pale which softens all,
Lord Byron's portrait on the wall
And the cast-iron statuette
With folded arms and eyes bent low,
Cocked hat and melancholy brow. (69)
[Note 69: The Russians not unfrequently adorn their apartments
with effigies of the great Napoleon. ]
XVIII
Long in this fashionable cell
Tattiana as enchanted stood;
But it grew late; cold blew the gale;
Dark was the valley and the wood
slept o'er the river misty grown.
Behind the mountain sank the moon.
Long, long the hour had past when home
Our youthful wanderer should roam.
She hid the trouble of her breast,
Heaved an involuntary sigh
And turned to leave immediately,
But first permission did request
Thither in future to proceed
That certain volumes she might read.
XIX
Adieu she to the matron said
At the front gates, but in brief space
At early morn returns the maid
To the abandoned dwelling-place.
When in the study's calm retreat,
Wrapt in oblivion complete,
She found herself alone at last,
Longtime her tears flowed thick and fast;
But presently she tried to read;
At first for books was disinclined,
But soon their choice seemed to her mind
Remarkable. She then indeed
Devoured them with an eager zest.
A new world was made manifest!
XX
Although we know that Eugene had
Long ceased to be a reading man,
Still certain authors, I may add,
He had excepted from the ban:
The bard of Juan and the Giaour,
With it may be a couple more;
Romances three, in which ye scan
Portrayed contemporary man
As the reflection of his age,
His immorality of mind
To arid selfishness resigned,
A visionary personage
With his exasperated sense,
His energy and impotence.
XXI
And numerous pages had preserved
The sharp incisions of his nail,
And these the attentive maid observed
With eye precise and without fail.
Tattiana saw with trepidation
By what idea or observation
Oneguine was the most impressed,
In what he merely acquiesced.
Upon those margins she perceived
Oneguine's pencillings. His mind
Made revelations undesigned,
Of what he thought and what believed,
A dagger, asterisk, or note
Interrogation to denote.
XXII
And my Tattiana now began
To understand by slow degrees
More clearly, God be praised, the man,
Whom autocratic fate's decrees
Had bid her sigh for without hope--
A dangerous, gloomy misanthrope,
Being from hell or heaven sent,
Angel or fiend malevolent.
Which is he? or an imitation,
A bogy conjured up in joke,
A Russian in Childe Harold's cloak,
Of foreign whims the impersonation--
Handbook of fashionable phrase
Or parody of modern ways?
XXIII
Hath she found out the riddle yet?
Hath she a fitting phrase selected?
But time flies and she doth forget
They long at home have her expected--
Whither two neighbouring dames have walked
And a long time about her talked.
"What can be done? She is no child! "
Cried the old dame with anguish filled:
"Olinka is her junior, see.
'Tis time to many her, 'tis true,
But tell me what am I to do?
To all she answers cruelly--
I will not wed, and ever weeps
And lonely through the forest creeps. "
XXIV
"Is she in love? " quoth one. "With whom?
Bouyanoff courted. She refused.
Petoushkoff met the selfsame doom.
The hussar Pikhtin was accused.
How the young imp on Tania doted!
To captivate her how devoted!
I mused: perhaps the matter's squared--
O yes! my hopes soon disappeared. "
"But, _matushka_, to Moscow you(70)
Should go, the market for a maid,
With many a vacancy, 'tis said. "--
"Alas! my friend, no revenue! "
"Enough to see one winter's end;
If not, the money I will lend. "
[Note 70: "Matushka," or "little mother," a term of endearment
in constant use amongst Russian females. ]
XXV
The venerable dame opined
The counsel good and full of reason,
Her money counted, and designed
To visit Moscow in the season.
Tattiana learns the intelligence--
Of her provincial innocence
The unaffected traits she now
Unto a carping world must show--
Her toilette's antiquated style,
Her antiquated mode of speech,
For Moscow fops and Circes each
To mark with a contemptuous smile.
Horror! had she not better stay
Deep in the greenwood far away?
XXVI
Arising with the morning's light,
Unto the fields she makes her way,
And with emotional delight
Surveying them, she thus doth say:
"Ye peaceful valleys all, good-bye!
Ye well-known mountain summits high,
Ye groves whose depths I know so well,
Thou beauteous sky above, farewell!
Delicious nature, thee I fly,
The calm existence which I prize
I yield for splendid vanities,
Thou too farewell, my liberty!
Whither and wherefore do I speed
And what will Destiny concede? "
XXVII
Farther Tattiana's walks extend--
'Tis now the hillock now the rill
Their natural attractions lend
To stay the maid against her will.
She the acquaintances she loves,
Her spacious fields and shady groves,
Another visit hastes to pay.
But Summer swiftly fades away
And golden Autumn draweth nigh,
And pallid nature trembling grieves,
A victim decked with golden leaves;
Dark clouds before the north wind fly;
It blew: it howled: till winter e'en
Came forth in all her magic sheen.
XXVIII
The snow descends and buries all,
Hangs heavy on the oaken boughs,
A white and undulating pall
O'er hillock and o'er meadow throws.
The channel of the river stilled
As if with eider-down is filled.
The hoar-frost glitters: all rejoice
In mother Winter's strange caprice.
But Tania's heart is not at ease,
Winter's approach she doth not hail
Nor the frost particles inhale
Nor the first snow of winter seize
Her shoulders, breast and face to lave--
Alarm the winter journey gave.
XXIX
The date was fixed though oft postponed,
But ultimately doth approach.
Examined, mended, newly found
Was the old and forgotten coach;
Kibitkas three, the accustomed train,(71)
The household property contain:
Saucepans and mattresses and chairs,
Portmanteaus and preserves in jars,
Feather-beds, also poultry-coops,
Basins and jugs--well! everything
To happiness contributing.
Behold! beside their dwelling groups
Of serfs the farewell wail have given.
Nags eighteen to the door are driven.
[Note 71: In former times, and to some extent the practice still
continues to the present day, Russian families were wont to
travel with every necessary of life, and, in the case of the
wealthy, all its luxuries following in their train. As the
poet complains in a subsequent stanza there were no inns;
and if the simple Larinas required such ample store of creature
comforts the impediments accompanying a great noble on his
journeys may be easily conceived. ]
XXX
These to the coach of state are bound,
Breakfast the busy cooks prepare,
Baggage is heaped up in a mound,
Old women at the coachmen swear.
A bearded postillion astride
A lean and shaggy nag doth ride,
Unto the gates the servants fly
To bid the gentlefolk good-bye.
These take their seats; the coach of state
Leisurely through the gateway glides.
"Adieu! thou home where peace abides,
Where turmoil cannot penetrate,
Shall I behold thee once again? "--
Tattiana tears cannot restrain.
XXXI
The limits of enlightenment
When to enlarge we shall succeed,
In course of time (the whole extent
Will not five centuries exceed
By computation) it is like
Our roads transformed the eye will strike;
Highways all Russia will unite
And form a network left and right;
On iron bridges we shall gaze
Which o'er the waters boldly leap,
Mountains we'll level and through deep
Streams excavate subaqueous ways,
And Christian folk will, I expect,
An inn at every stage erect.
XXXII
But now, what wretched roads one sees,
Our bridges long neglected rot,
And at the stages bugs and fleas
One moment's slumber suffer not.
Inns there are none. Pretentious but
Meagre, within a draughty hut,
A bill of fare hangs full in sight
And irritates the appetite.
Meantime a Cyclops of those parts
Before a fire which feebly glows
Mends with the Russian hammer's blows
The flimsy wares of Western marts,
With blessings on the ditches and
The ruts of his own fatherland.
XXXIII
Yet on a frosty winter day
The journey in a sledge doth please,
No senseless fashionable lay
Glides with a more luxurious ease;
For our Automedons are fire
And our swift troikas never tire;
The verst posts catch the vacant eye
And like a palisade flit by. (72)
The Larinas unwisely went,
From apprehension of the cost,
By their own horses, not the post--
So Tania to her heart's content
Could taste the pleasures of the road.
Seven days and nights the travellers plod.
[Note 72: This somewhat musty joke has appeared in more than one
national costume. Most Englishmen, if we were to replace
verst-posts with milestones and substitute a graveyard for
a palisade, would instantly recognize its Yankee extraction.
In Russia however its origin is as ancient at least as the
reign of Catherine the Second. The witticism ran thus: A
courier sent by Prince Potemkin to the Empress drove so
fast that his sword, projecting from the vehicle, rattled
against the verst-posts as if against a palisade! ]
XXXIV
But they draw near. Before them, lo!
White Moscow raises her old spires,
Whose countless golden crosses glow
As with innumerable fires. (73)
Ah! brethren, what was my delight
When I yon semicircle bright
Of churches, gardens, belfries high
Descried before me suddenly!
Moscow, how oft in evil days,
Condemned to exile dire by fate,
On thee I used to meditate!
Moscow! How much is in the phrase
For every loyal Russian breast!
How much is in that word expressed!
[Note 73: The aspect of Moscow, especially as seen from the Sparrow
Hills, a low range bordering the river Moskva at a short distance
from the city, is unique and splendid. It possesses several domes
completely plated with gold and some twelve hundred spires most of
which are surmounted by a golden cross. At the time of sunset they
seem literally tipped with flame. It was from this memorable spot
that Napoleon and the Grand Army first obtained a glimpse at the
city of the Tsars. There are three hundred and seventy churches in
Moscow. The Kremlin itself is however by far the most interesting
object to the stranger. ]
XXXV
Lo! compassed by his grove of oaks,
Petrovski Palace! Gloomily
His recent glory he invokes.
Here, drunk with his late victory,
Napoleon tarried till it please
Moscow approach on bended knees,
Time-honoured Kremlin's keys present.
Not so! My Moscow never went
To seek him out with bended head.
No gift she bears, no feast proclaims,
But lights incendiary flames
For the impatient chief instead.
From hence engrossed in thought profound
He on the conflagration frowned. (74)
[Note 74: Napoleon on his arrival in Moscow on the 14th September
took up his quarters in the Kremlin, but on the 16th had to
remove to the Petrovski Palace or Castle on account of the
conflagration which broke out in all quarters of the city. He
however returned to the Kremlin on the 19th September. The Palace
itself is placed in the midst of extensive grounds just outside
the city, on the road to Tver, i. e. to the northwest. It is
perhaps worthy of remark, as one amongst numerous circumstances
proving how extensively the poet interwove his own life-experiences
with the plot of this poem, that it was by this road that he
himself must have been in the habit of approaching Moscow from his
favourite country residence of Mikhailovskoe, in the province of
Pskoff. ]
XXXVI
Adieu, thou witness of our glory,
Petrovski Palace; come, astir!
Drive on! the city barriers hoary
Appear; along the road of Tver
The coach is borne o'er ruts and holes,
Past women, sentry-boxes, rolls,
Past palaces and nunneries,
Lamp-posts, shops, sledges, families,
Bokharians, peasants, beds of greens,
Boulevards, belfries, milliners,
Huts, chemists, Cossacks, shopkeepers
And fashionable magazines,
Balconies, lion's heads on doors,
Jackdaws on every spire--in scores. (75)
[Note 75: The first line refers to the prevailing shape of the
cast-iron handles which adorn the _porte cocheres_. The
Russians are fond of tame birds--jackdaws, pigeons, starlings,
etc. , abound in Moscow and elsewhere. ]
XXXVII
The weary way still incomplete,
An hour passed by--another--till,
Near Khariton's in a side street
The coach before a house stood still.
At an old aunt's they had arrived
Who had for four long years survived
An invalid from lung complaint.
A Kalmuck gray, in caftan rent
And spectacles, his knitting staid
And the saloon threw open wide;
The princess from the sofa cried
And the newcomers welcome bade.
The two old ladies then embraced
And exclamations interlaced.
XXXVIII
"Princesse, mon ange! "--"Pachette! "--
"Aline! "
"Who would have thought it? As of yore!
Is it for long? "--"Ma chere cousine! "
"Sit down. How funny, to be sure!
'Tis a scene of romance, I vow! "
"Tania, my eldest child, you know"--
"Ah! come, Tattiana, come to me!
Is it a dream, and can it be?
Cousin, rememb'rest Grandison? "
"What! Grandison? "--"Yes, certainly! "
"Oh! I remember, where is he? "--
"Here, he resides with Simeon.
He called upon me Christmas Eve--
His son is married, just conceive! "
XXXIX
"And he--but of him presently--
To-morrow Tania we will show,
What say you? to the family--
Alas! abroad I cannot go.
See, I can hardly crawl about--
But you must both be quite tired out!
Let us go seek a little rest--
Ah! I'm so weak--my throbbing breast!
Oppressive now is happiness,
Not only sorrow--Ah! my dear,
Now I am fit for nothing here.
In old age life is weariness! "
Then weeping she sank back distressed
And fits of coughing racked her chest.
XL
By the sick lady's gaiety
And kindness Tania was impressed,
But, her own room in memory,
The strange apartment her oppressed:
Repose her silken curtains fled,
She could not sleep in her new bed.
The early tinkling of the bells
Which of approaching labour tells
Aroused Tattiana from her bed.
The maiden at her casement sits
As daylight glimmers, darkness flits,
But ah! discerns nor wood nor mead--
Beneath her lay a strange courtyard,
A stable, kitchen, fence appeared.
XLI
To consanguineous dinners they
Conduct Tattiana constantly,
That grandmothers and grandsires may
Contemplate her sad reverie.
We Russians, friends from distant parts
Ever receive with kindly hearts
And exclamations and good cheer.
"How Tania grows! Doth it appear"
"Long since I held thee at the font--
Since in these arms I thee did bear--
And since I pulled thee by the ear--
And I to give thee cakes was wont? "--
Then the old dames in chorus sing,
"Oh! how our years are vanishing! "
XLII
But nothing changed in them is seen,
All in the good old style appears,
Our dear old aunt, Princess Helene,
Her cap of tulle still ever wears:
Luceria Lvovna paint applies,
Amy Petrovna utters lies,
Ivan Petrovitch still a gaby,
Simeon Petrovitch just as shabby;
Pelagie Nikolavna has
Her friend Monsieur Finemouche the same,
Her wolf-dog and her husband tame;
Still of his club he member was--
As deaf and silly doth remain,
Still eats and drinks enough for twain.
XLIII
Their daughters kiss Tattiana fair.
In the beginning, cold and mute,
Moscow's young Graces at her stare,
Examine her from head to foot.
They deem her somewhat finical,
Outlandish and provincial,
A trifle pale, a trifle lean,
But plainer girls they oft had seen.
Obedient then to Nature's law,
With her they did associate,
Squeeze tiny hands and osculate;
Her tresses curled in fashion saw,
And oft in whispers would impart
A maiden's secrets--of the heart.
XLIV
Triumphs--their own or those of friends--
Hopes, frolics, dreams and sentiment
Their harmless conversation blends
With scandal's trivial ornament.
Then to reward such confidence
Her amorous experience
With mute appeal to ask they seem--
But Tania just as in a dream
Without participation hears,
Their voices nought to her impart
And the lone secret of her heart,
Her sacred hoard of joy and tears,
She buries deep within her breast
Nor aught confides unto the rest.
XLV
Tattiana would have gladly heard
The converse of the world polite,
But in the drawing-room all appeared
To find in gossip such delight,
Speech was so tame and colourless
Their slander e'en was weariness;
In their sterility of prattle,
Questions and news and tittle-tattle,
No sense was ever manifest
Though by an error and unsought--
The languid mind could smile at nought,
Heart would not throb albeit in jest--
Even amusing fools we miss
In thee, thou world of empty bliss.
XLVI
In groups, official striplings glance
Conceitedly on Tania fair,
And views amongst themselves advance
Unfavourable unto her.
But one buffoon unhappy deemed
Her the ideal which he dreamed,
And leaning 'gainst the portal closed
To her an elegy composed.
Also one Viazemski, remarking
Tattiana by a poor aunt's side,
Successfully to please her tried,
And an old gent the poet marking
By Tania, smoothing his peruke,
To ask her name the trouble took. (76)
[Note 76: One of the obscure satirical allusions contained in this
poem. Doubtless the joke was perfectly intelligible to the
_habitues_ of contemporary St. Petersburg society. Viazemski of
course is the poet and prince, Pushkin's friend. ]
XLVII
But where Melpomene doth rave
With lengthened howl and accent loud,
And her bespangled robe doth wave
Before a cold indifferent crowd,
And where Thalia softly dreams
And heedless of approval seems,
Terpsichore alone among
Her sisterhood delights the young
(So 'twas with us in former years,
In your young days and also mine),
Never upon my heroine
The jealous dame her lorgnette veers,
The connoisseur his glances throws
From boxes or from stalls in rows.
XLVIII
To the assembly her they bear.
There the confusion, pressure, heat,
The crash of music, candles' glare
And rapid whirl of many feet,
The ladies' dresses airy, light,
The motley moving mass and bright,
Young ladies in a vasty curve,
To strike imagination serve.
'Tis there that arrant fops display
Their insolence and waistcoats white
And glasses unemployed all night;
Thither hussars on leave will stray
To clank the spur, delight the fair--
And vanish like a bird in air.
XLIX
Full many a lovely star hath night
And Moscow many a beauty fair:
Yet clearer shines than every light
The moon in the blue atmosphere.
And she to whom my lyre would fain,
Yet dares not, dedicate its strain,
Shines in the female firmament
Like a full moon magnificent.
Lo! with what pride celestial
Her feet the earth beneath her press!
Her heart how full of gentleness,
Her glance how wild yet genial!
Enough, enough, conclude thy lay--
For folly's dues thou hadst to pay.
L
Noise, laughter, bowing, hurrying mixt,
Gallop, mazurka, waltzing--see!
A pillar by, two aunts betwixt,
Tania, observed by nobody,
Looks upon all with absent gaze
And hates the world's discordant ways.
'Tis noisome to her there: in thought
Again her rural life she sought,
The hamlet, the poor villagers,
The little solitary nook
Where shining runs the tiny brook,
Her garden, and those books of hers,
And the lime alley's twilight dim
Where the first time she met with _him_.
LI
Thus widely meditation erred,
Forgot the world, the noisy ball,
Whilst from her countenance ne'er stirred
The eyes of a grave general.
Both aunts looked knowing as a judge,
Each gave Tattiana's arm a nudge
And in a whisper did repeat:
"Look quickly to your left, my sweet! "
"The left? Why, what on earth is there? "--
"No matter, look immediately.
There, in that knot of company,
Two dressed in uniform appear--
Ah! he has gone the other way"--
"Who? Is it that stout general, pray? "--
LII
Let us congratulations pay
To our Tattiana conquering,
And for a time our course delay,
That I forget not whom I sing.
Let me explain that in my song
"I celebrate a comrade young
And the extent of his caprice;
O epic Muse, my powers increase
And grant success to labour long;
Having a trusty staff bestowed,
Grant that I err not on the road. "
Enough! my pack is now unslung--
To classicism I've homage paid,
Though late, have a beginning made. (77)
[Note 77: Many will consider this mode of bringing the canto
to a conclusion of more than doubtful taste. The poet evidently
aims a stroke at the pedantic and narrow-minded criticism to
which original genius, emancipated from the strait-waistcoat of
conventionality, is not unfrequently subjected. ]
End of Canto The Seventh
CANTO THE EIGHTH
The Great World
'Fare thee well, and if for ever,
Still for ever fare thee well. '--Byron
Canto the Eighth
[St. Petersburg, Boldino, Tsarskoe Selo, 1880-1881]
I
In the Lyceum's noiseless shade
As in a garden when I grew,
I Apuleius gladly read
But would not look at Cicero.
'Twas then in valleys lone, remote,
In spring-time, heard the cygnet's note
By waters shining tranquilly,
That first the Muse appeared to me.
Into the study of the boy
There came a sudden flash of light,
The Muse revealed her first delight,
Sang childhood's pastimes and its joy,
Glory with which our history teems
And the heart's agitated dreams.
II
And the world met her smilingly,
A first success light pinions gave,
The old Derjavine noticed me,
And blest me, sinking to the grave. (78)
Then my companions young with pleasure
In the unfettered hours of leisure
Her utterances ever heard,
And by a partial temper stirred
And boiling o'er with friendly heat,
They first of all my brow did wreathe
And an encouragement did breathe
That my coy Muse might sing more sweet.
O triumphs of my guileless days,
How sweet a dream your memories raise!
[Note 78: This touching scene produced a lasting impression on
Pushkin's mind. It took place at a public examination at
the Lyceum, on which occasion the boy poet produced a poem. The
incident recalls the "Mon cher Tibulle" of Voltaire and the
youthful Parny (see Note 42). Derjavine flourished during the
reigns of Catherine the Second and Alexander the First. His
poems are stiff and formal in style and are not much thought of
by contemporary Russians. But a century back a very infinitesimal
endowment of literary ability was sufficient to secure imperial
reward and protection, owing to the backward state of the empire.
Stanza II properly concludes with this line, the remainder having
been expunged either by the author himself or the censors. I have
filled up the void with lines from a fragment left by the author
having reference to this canto. ]
III
Passion's wild sway I then allowed,
Her promptings unto law did make,
Pursuits I followed of the crowd,
My sportive Muse I used to take
To many a noisy feast and fight,
Terror of guardians of the night;
And wild festivities among
She brought with her the gift of song.
Like a Bacchante in her sport
Beside the cup she sang her rhymes
And the young revellers of past times
Vociferously paid her court,
And I, amid the friendly crowd,
Of my light paramour was proud.
IV
But I abandoned their array,
And fled afar--she followed me.
How oft the kindly Muse away
Hath whiled the road's monotony,
Entranced me by some mystic tale.
How oft beneath the moonbeams pale
Like Leonora did she ride(79)
With me Caucasian rocks beside!
How oft to the Crimean shore
She led me through nocturnal mist
Unto the sounding sea to list,
Where Nereids murmur evermore,
And where the billows hoarsely raise
To God eternal hymns of praise.
[Note 79: See Note 30, "Leonora," a poem by Gottfried Augustus
Burger, b. 1748, d. 1794. ]
V
Then, the far capital forgot,
Its splendour and its blandishments,
In poor Moldavia cast her lot,
She visited the humble tents
Of migratory gipsy hordes--
And wild among them grew her words--
Our godlike tongue she could exchange
For savage speech, uncouth and strange,
And ditties of the steppe she loved.
But suddenly all changed around!
Lo! in my garden was she found
And as a country damsel roved,
A pensive sorrow in her glance
And in her hand a French romance.
VI
Now for the first time I my Muse
Lead into good society,
Her steppe-like beauties I peruse
With jealous fear, anxiety.
Through dense aristocratic rows
Of diplomats and warlike beaux
And supercilious dames she glides,
Sits down and gazes on all sides--
Amazed at the confusing crowd,
Variety of speech and vests,
Deliberate approach of guests
Who to the youthful hostess bowed,
And the dark fringe of men, like frames
Enclosing pictures of fair dames.
VII
Assemblies oligarchical
Please her by their decorum fixed,
The rigour of cold pride and all
Titles and ages intermixed.
But who in that choice company
With clouded brow stands silently?
Unknown to all he doth appear,
A vision desolate and drear
Doth seem to him the festal scene.
Doth his brow wretchedness declare
Or suffering pride? Why is he there?
Who may he be? Is it Eugene?
Pray is it he? It is the same.
"And is it long since back he came?
VIII
"Is he the same or grown more wise?
Still doth the misanthrope appear?
He has returned, say in what guise?
What is his latest character?
What doth he act? Is it Melmoth,(80)
Philanthropist or patriot,
Childe Harold, quaker, devotee,
Or other mask donned playfully?
Or a good fellow for the nonce,
Like you and me and all the rest? --
But this is my advice, 'twere best
Not to behave as he did once--
Society he duped enow. "
"Is he known to you? "--"Yes and No. "
[Note 80: A romance by Maturin. ]
IX
Wherefore regarding him express
Perverse, unfavourable views?
Is it that human restlessness
For ever carps, condemns, pursues?
Is it that ardent souls of flame
By recklessness amuse or shame
Selfish nonentities around?
That mind which yearns for space is bound?
And that too often we receive
Professions eagerly for deeds,
That crass stupidity misleads,
That we by cant ourselves deceive,
That mediocrity alone
Without disgust we look upon?
X
Happy he who in youth was young,
Happy who timely grew mature,
He who life's frosts which early wrung
Hath gradually learnt to endure;
By visions who was ne'er deranged
Nor from the mob polite estranged,
At twenty who was prig or swell,
At thirty who was married well,
At fifty who relief obtained
From public and from private ties,
Who glory, wealth and dignities
Hath tranquilly in turn attained,
And unto whom we all allude
As to a worthy man and good!
And Lenski, closing his left eye,
Took aim--but as immediately
Oneguine fired--Alas! alas!
The poet's hour hath sounded--See!
He drops his pistol silently.
XXIX
He on his bosom gently placed
His hand, and fell. His clouded eye
Not agony, but death expressed.
So from the mountain lazily
The avalanche of snow first bends,
Then glittering in the sun descends.
The cold sweat bursting from his brow,
To the youth Eugene hurried now--
Gazed on him, called him. Useless care!
He was no more! The youthful bard
For evermore had disappeared.
The storm was hushed. The blossom fair
Was withered ere the morning light--
The altar flame was quenched in night.
XXX
Tranquil he lay, and strange to view
The peace which on his forehead beamed,
His breast was riddled through and through,
The blood gushed from the wound and steamed
Ere this but one brief moment beat
That heart with inspiration sweet
And enmity and hope and love--
The blood boiled and the passions strove.
Now, as in a deserted house,
All dark and silent hath become;
The inmate is for ever dumb,
The windows whitened, shutters close--
Whither departed is the host?
God knows! The very trace is lost.
XXXI
'Tis sweet the foe to aggravate
With epigrams impertinent,
Sweet to behold him obstinate,
His butting horns in anger bent,
The glass unwittingly inspect
And blush to own himself reflect.
Sweeter it is, my friends, if he
Howl like a dolt: 'tis meant for me!
But sweeter still it is to arrange
For him an honourable grave,
At his pale brow a shot to have,
Placed at the customary range;
But home his body to despatch
Can scarce in sweetness be a match.
XXXII
Well, if your pistol ball by chance
The comrade of your youth should strike,
Who by a haughty word or glance
Or any trifle else ye like
You o'er your wine insulted hath--
Or even overcome by wrath
Scornfully challenged you afield--
Tell me, of sentiments concealed
Which in your spirit dominates,
When motionless your gaze beneath
He lies, upon his forehead death,
And slowly life coagulates--
When deaf and silent he doth lie
Heedless of your despairing cry?
XXXIII
Eugene, his pistol yet in hand
And with remorseful anguish filled,
Gazing on Lenski's corse did stand--
Zaretski shouted: "Why, he's killed! "--
Killed! at this dreadful exclamation
Oneguine went with trepidation
And the attendants called in haste.
Most carefully Zaretski placed
Within his sledge the stiffened corse,
And hurried home his awful freight.
Conscious of death approximate,
Loud paws the earth each panting horse,
His bit with foam besprinkled o'er,
And homeward like an arrow tore.
XXXIV
My friends, the poet ye regret!
When hope's delightful flower but bloomed
In bud of promise incomplete,
The manly toga scarce assumed,
He perished. Where his troubled dreams,
And where the admirable streams
Of youthful impulse, reverie,
Tender and elevated, free?
And where tempestuous love's desires,
The thirst of knowledge and of fame,
Horror of sinfulness and shame,
Imagination's sacred fires,
Ye shadows of a life more high,
Ye dreams of heavenly poesy?
XXXV
Perchance to benefit mankind,
Or but for fame he saw the light;
His lyre, to silence now consigned,
Resounding through all ages might
Have echoed to eternity.
With worldly honours, it may be,
Fortune the poet had repaid.
It may be that his martyred shade
Carried a truth divine away;
That, for the century designed,
Had perished a creative mind,
And past the threshold of decay,
He ne'er shall hear Time's eulogy,
The blessings of humanity.
XXXVI
Or, it may be, the bard had passed
A life in common with the rest;
Vanished his youthful years at last,
The fire extinguished in his breast,
In many things had changed his life--
The Muse abandoned, ta'en a wife,
Inhabited the country, clad
In dressing-gown, a cuckold glad:
A life of fact, not fiction, led--
At forty suffered from the gout,
Eaten, drunk, gossiped and grown stout:
And finally, upon his bed
Had finished life amid his sons,
Doctors and women, sobs and groans.
XXXVII
But, howsoe'er his lot were cast,
Alas! the youthful lover slain,
Poetical enthusiast,
A friendly hand thy life hath ta'en!
There is a spot the village near
Where dwelt the Muses' worshipper,
Two pines have joined their tangled roots,
A rivulet beneath them shoots
Its waters to the neighbouring vale.
There the tired ploughman loves to lie,
The reaping girls approach and ply
Within its wave the sounding pail,
And by that shady rivulet
A simple tombstone hath been set.
XXXVIII
There, when the rains of spring we mark
Upon the meadows showering,
The shepherd plaits his shoe of bark,(66)
Of Volga fishermen doth sing,
And the young damsel from the town,
For summer to the country flown,
Whene'er across the plain at speed
Alone she gallops on her steed,
Stops at the tomb in passing by;
The tightened leathern rein she draws,
Aside she casts her veil of gauze
And reads with rapid eager eye
The simple epitaph--a tear
Doth in her gentle eye appear.
[Note 66: In Russia and other northern countries rude shoes are
made of the inner bark of the lime tree. ]
XXXIX
And meditative from the spot
She leisurely away doth ride,
Spite of herself with Lenski's lot
Longtime her mind is occupied.
She muses: "What was Olga's fate?
Longtime was her heart desolate
Or did her tears soon cease to flow?
And where may be her sister now?
Where is the outlaw, banned by men,
Of fashionable dames the foe,
The misanthrope of gloomy brow,
By whom the youthful bard was slain? "--
In time I'll give ye without fail
A true account and in detail.
XL
But not at present, though sincerely
I on my chosen hero dote;
Though I'll return to him right early,
Just at this moment I cannot.
Years have inclined me to stern prose,
Years to light rhyme themselves oppose,
And now, I mournfully confess,
In rhyming I show laziness.
As once, to fill the rapid page
My pen no longer finds delight,
Other and colder thoughts affright,
Sterner solicitudes engage,
In worldly din or solitude
Upon my visions such intrude.
XLI
Fresh aspirations I have known,
I am acquainted with fresh care,
Hopeless are all the first, I own,
Yet still remains the old despair.
Illusions, dream, where, where your sweetness?
Where youth (the proper rhyme is fleetness)?
And is it true her garland bright
At last is shrunk and withered quite?
And is it true and not a jest,
Not even a poetic phrase,
That vanished are my youthful days
(This joking I used to protest),
Never for me to reappear--
That soon I reach my thirtieth year?
XLII
And so my noon hath come! If so,
I must resign myself, in sooth;
Yet let us part in friendship, O
My frivolous and jolly youth.
I thank thee for thy joyfulness,
Love's tender transports and distress,
For riot, frolics, mighty feeds,
And all that from thy hand proceeds--
I thank thee. In thy company,
With tumult or contentment still
Of thy delights I drank my fill,
Enough! with tranquil spirit I
Commence a new career in life
And rest from bygone days of strife.
XLIII
But pause! Thou calm retreats, farewell,
Where my days in the wilderness
Of languor and of love did tell
And contemplative dreaminess;
And thou, youth's early inspiration,
Invigorate imagination
And spur my spirit's torpid mood!
Fly frequent to my solitude,
Let not the poet's spirit freeze,
Grow harsh and cruel, dead and dry,
Eventually petrify
In the world's mortal revelries,
Amid the soulless sons of pride
And glittering simpletons beside;
XLIV
Amid sly, pusillanimous
Spoiled children most degenerate
And tiresome rogues ridiculous
And stupid censors passionate;
Amid coquettes who pray to God
And abject slaves who kiss the rod;
In haunts of fashion where each day
All with urbanity betray,
Where harsh frivolity proclaims
Its cold unfeeling sentences;
Amid the awful emptiness
Of conversation, thought and aims--
In that morass where you and I
Wallow, my friends, in company!
END OF CANTO THE SIXTH
CANTO THE SEVENTH
Moscow
Moscow, Russia's darling daughter,
Where thine equal shall we find? '
Dmitrieff
Who can help loving mother Moscow?
Baratynski (Feasts)
A journey to Moscow! To see the world!
Where better?
Where man is not.
Griboyedoff (Woe from Wit)
Canto The Seventh
[Written 1827-1828 at Moscow, Mikhailovskoe, St. Petersburg
and Malinniki. ]
I
Impelled by Spring's dissolving beams,
The snows from off the hills around
Descended swift in turbid streams
And flooded all the level ground.
A smile from slumbering nature clear
Did seem to greet the youthful year;
The heavens shone in deeper blue,
The woods, still naked to the view,
Seemed in a haze of green embowered.
The bee forth from his cell of wax
Flew to collect his rural tax;
The valleys dried and gaily flowered;
Herds low, and under night's dark veil
Already sings the nightingale.
II
Mournful is thine approach to me,
O Spring, thou chosen time of love!
What agitation languidly
My spirit and my blood doth move,
What sad emotions o'er me steal
When first upon my cheek I feel
The breath of Spring again renewed,
Secure in rural quietude--
Or, strange to me is happiness?
Do all things which to mirth incline.
And make a dark existence shine
Inflict annoyance and distress
Upon a soul inert and cloyed? --
And is all light within destroyed?
III
Or, heedless of the leaves' return
Which Autumn late to earth consigned,
Do we alone our losses mourn
Of which the rustling woods remind?
Or, when anew all Nature teems,
Do we foresee in troubled dreams
The coming of life's Autumn drear.
For which no springtime shall appear?
Or, it may be, we inly seek,
Wafted upon poetic wing,
Some other long-departed Spring,
Whose memories make the heart beat quick
With thoughts of a far distant land,
Of a strange night when the moon and--
IV
'Tis now the season! Idlers all,
Epicurean philosophers,
Ye men of fashion cynical,
Of Levshin's school ye followers,(67)
Priams of country populations
And dames of fine organisations,
Spring summons you to her green bowers,
'Tis the warm time of labour, flowers;
The time for mystic strolls which late
Into the starry night extend.
Quick to the country let us wend
In vehicles surcharged with freight;
In coach or post-cart duly placed
Beyond the city-barriers haste.
[Note 67: Levshin--a contemporary writer on political economy. ]
V
Thou also, reader generous,
The chaise long ordered please employ,
Abandon cities riotous,
Which in the winter were a joy:
The Muse capricious let us coax,
Go hear the rustling of the oaks
Beside a nameless rivulet,
Where in the country Eugene yet,
An idle anchorite and sad,
A while ago the winter spent,
Near young Tattiana resident,
My pretty self-deceiving maid--
No more the village knows his face,
For there he left a mournful trace.
VI
Let us proceed unto a rill,
Which in a hilly neighbourhood
Seeks, winding amid meadows still,
The river through the linden wood.
The nightingale there all night long,
Spring's paramour, pours forth her song
The fountain brawls, sweetbriers bloom,
And lo! where lies a marble tomb
And two old pines their branches spread--
"_Vladimir Lenski lies beneath,
Who early died a gallant death_,"
Thereon the passing traveller read:
"_The date, his fleeting years how long--
Repose in peace, thou child of song_. "
VII
Time was, the breath of early dawn
Would agitate a mystic wreath
Hung on a pine branch earthward drawn
Above the humble urn of death.
Time was, two maidens from their home
At eventide would hither come,
And, by the light the moonbeams gave,
Lament, embrace upon that grave.
But now--none heeds the monument
Of woe: effaced the pathway now:
There is no wreath upon the bough:
Alone beside it, gray and bent,
As formerly the shepherd sits
And his poor basten sandal knits.
VIII
My poor Vladimir, bitter tears
Thee but a little space bewept,
Faithless, alas! thy maid appears,
Nor true unto her sorrow kept.
Another could her heart engage,
Another could her woe assuage
By flattery and lover's art--
A lancer captivates her heart!
A lancer her soul dotes upon:
Before the altar, lo! the pair,
Mark ye with what a modest air
She bows her head beneath the crown;(68)
Behold her downcast eyes which glow,
Her lips where light smiles come and go!
[Note 68: The crown used in celebrating marriages in Russia
according to the forms of the Eastern Church. See Note 28. ]
IX
My poor Vladimir! In the tomb,
Passed into dull eternity,
Was the sad poet filled with gloom,
Hearing the fatal perfidy?
Or, beyond Lethe lulled to rest,
Hath the bard, by indifference blest,
Callous to all on earth become--
Is the world to him sealed and dumb?
The same unmoved oblivion
On us beyond the grave attends,
The voice of lovers, foes and friends,
Dies suddenly: of heirs alone
Remains on earth the unseemly rage,
Whilst struggling for the heritage.
X
Soon Olga's accents shrill resound
No longer through her former home;
The lancer, to his calling bound,
Back to his regiment must roam.
The aged mother, bathed in tears,
Distracted by her grief appears
When the hour came to bid good-bye--
But my Tattiana's eyes were dry.
Only her countenance assumed
A deadly pallor, air distressed;
When all around the entrance pressed,
To say farewell, and fussed and fumed
Around the carriage of the pair--
Tattiana gently led them there.
XI
And long her eyes as through a haze
After the wedded couple strain;
Alas! the friend of childish days
Away, Tattiana, hath been ta'en.
Thy dove, thy darling little pet
On whom a sister's heart was set
Afar is borne by cruel fate,
For evermore is separate.
She wanders aimless as a sprite,
Into the tangled garden goes
But nowhere can she find repose,
Nor even tears afford respite,
Of consolation all bereft--
Well nigh her heart in twain was cleft.
XII
In cruel solitude each day
With flame more ardent passion burns,
And to Oneguine far away
Her heart importunately turns.
She never more his face may view,
For was it not her duty to
Detest him for a brother slain?
The poet fell; already men
No more remembered him; unto
Another his betrothed was given;
The memory of the bard was driven
Like smoke athwart the heaven blue;
Two hearts perchance were desolate
And mourned him still. Why mourn his fate?
XIII
'Twas eve. 'Twas dusk. The river speeds
In tranquil flow. The beetle hums.
Already dance to song proceeds;
The fisher's fire afar illumes
The river's bank. Tattiana lone
Beneath the silver of the moon
Long time in meditation deep
Her path across the plain doth keep--
Proceeds, until she from a hill
Sees where a noble mansion stood,
A village and beneath, a wood,
A garden by a shining rill.
She gazed thereon, and instant beat
Her heart more loudly and more fleet.
XIV
She hesitates, in doubt is thrown--
"Shall I proceed, or homeward flee?
He is not there: I am not known:
The house and garden I would see. "
Tattiana from the hill descends
With bated breath, around she bends
A countenance perplexed and scared.
She enters a deserted yard--
Yelping, a pack of dogs rush out,
But at her shriek ran forth with noise
The household troop of little boys,
Who with a scuffle and a shout
The curs away to kennel chase,
The damsel under escort place.
XV
"Can I inspect the mansion, please? "
Tattiana asks, and hurriedly
Unto Anicia for the keys
The family of children hie.
Anicia soon appears, the door
Opens unto her visitor.
Into the lonely house she went,
Wherein a space Oneguine spent.
She gazed--a cue, forgotten long,
Doth on the billiard table rest,
Upon the tumbled sofa placed,
A riding whip. She strolls along.
The beldam saith: "The hearth, by it
The master always used to sit.
XVI
"Departed Lenski here to dine
In winter time would often come.
Please follow this way, lady mine,
This is my master's sitting-room.
'Tis here he slept, his coffee took,
Into accounts would sometimes look,
A book at early morn perused.
The room my former master used.
On Sundays by yon window he,
Spectacles upon nose, all day
Was wont with me at cards to play.
God save his soul eternally
And grant his weary bones their rest
Deep in our mother Earth's chill breast! "
XVII
Tattiana's eyes with tender gleam
On everything around her gaze,
Of priceless value all things seem
And in her languid bosom raise
A pleasure though with sorrow knit:
The table with its lamp unlit,
The pile of books, with carpet spread
Beneath the window-sill his bed,
The landscape which the moonbeams fret,
The twilight pale which softens all,
Lord Byron's portrait on the wall
And the cast-iron statuette
With folded arms and eyes bent low,
Cocked hat and melancholy brow. (69)
[Note 69: The Russians not unfrequently adorn their apartments
with effigies of the great Napoleon. ]
XVIII
Long in this fashionable cell
Tattiana as enchanted stood;
But it grew late; cold blew the gale;
Dark was the valley and the wood
slept o'er the river misty grown.
Behind the mountain sank the moon.
Long, long the hour had past when home
Our youthful wanderer should roam.
She hid the trouble of her breast,
Heaved an involuntary sigh
And turned to leave immediately,
But first permission did request
Thither in future to proceed
That certain volumes she might read.
XIX
Adieu she to the matron said
At the front gates, but in brief space
At early morn returns the maid
To the abandoned dwelling-place.
When in the study's calm retreat,
Wrapt in oblivion complete,
She found herself alone at last,
Longtime her tears flowed thick and fast;
But presently she tried to read;
At first for books was disinclined,
But soon their choice seemed to her mind
Remarkable. She then indeed
Devoured them with an eager zest.
A new world was made manifest!
XX
Although we know that Eugene had
Long ceased to be a reading man,
Still certain authors, I may add,
He had excepted from the ban:
The bard of Juan and the Giaour,
With it may be a couple more;
Romances three, in which ye scan
Portrayed contemporary man
As the reflection of his age,
His immorality of mind
To arid selfishness resigned,
A visionary personage
With his exasperated sense,
His energy and impotence.
XXI
And numerous pages had preserved
The sharp incisions of his nail,
And these the attentive maid observed
With eye precise and without fail.
Tattiana saw with trepidation
By what idea or observation
Oneguine was the most impressed,
In what he merely acquiesced.
Upon those margins she perceived
Oneguine's pencillings. His mind
Made revelations undesigned,
Of what he thought and what believed,
A dagger, asterisk, or note
Interrogation to denote.
XXII
And my Tattiana now began
To understand by slow degrees
More clearly, God be praised, the man,
Whom autocratic fate's decrees
Had bid her sigh for without hope--
A dangerous, gloomy misanthrope,
Being from hell or heaven sent,
Angel or fiend malevolent.
Which is he? or an imitation,
A bogy conjured up in joke,
A Russian in Childe Harold's cloak,
Of foreign whims the impersonation--
Handbook of fashionable phrase
Or parody of modern ways?
XXIII
Hath she found out the riddle yet?
Hath she a fitting phrase selected?
But time flies and she doth forget
They long at home have her expected--
Whither two neighbouring dames have walked
And a long time about her talked.
"What can be done? She is no child! "
Cried the old dame with anguish filled:
"Olinka is her junior, see.
'Tis time to many her, 'tis true,
But tell me what am I to do?
To all she answers cruelly--
I will not wed, and ever weeps
And lonely through the forest creeps. "
XXIV
"Is she in love? " quoth one. "With whom?
Bouyanoff courted. She refused.
Petoushkoff met the selfsame doom.
The hussar Pikhtin was accused.
How the young imp on Tania doted!
To captivate her how devoted!
I mused: perhaps the matter's squared--
O yes! my hopes soon disappeared. "
"But, _matushka_, to Moscow you(70)
Should go, the market for a maid,
With many a vacancy, 'tis said. "--
"Alas! my friend, no revenue! "
"Enough to see one winter's end;
If not, the money I will lend. "
[Note 70: "Matushka," or "little mother," a term of endearment
in constant use amongst Russian females. ]
XXV
The venerable dame opined
The counsel good and full of reason,
Her money counted, and designed
To visit Moscow in the season.
Tattiana learns the intelligence--
Of her provincial innocence
The unaffected traits she now
Unto a carping world must show--
Her toilette's antiquated style,
Her antiquated mode of speech,
For Moscow fops and Circes each
To mark with a contemptuous smile.
Horror! had she not better stay
Deep in the greenwood far away?
XXVI
Arising with the morning's light,
Unto the fields she makes her way,
And with emotional delight
Surveying them, she thus doth say:
"Ye peaceful valleys all, good-bye!
Ye well-known mountain summits high,
Ye groves whose depths I know so well,
Thou beauteous sky above, farewell!
Delicious nature, thee I fly,
The calm existence which I prize
I yield for splendid vanities,
Thou too farewell, my liberty!
Whither and wherefore do I speed
And what will Destiny concede? "
XXVII
Farther Tattiana's walks extend--
'Tis now the hillock now the rill
Their natural attractions lend
To stay the maid against her will.
She the acquaintances she loves,
Her spacious fields and shady groves,
Another visit hastes to pay.
But Summer swiftly fades away
And golden Autumn draweth nigh,
And pallid nature trembling grieves,
A victim decked with golden leaves;
Dark clouds before the north wind fly;
It blew: it howled: till winter e'en
Came forth in all her magic sheen.
XXVIII
The snow descends and buries all,
Hangs heavy on the oaken boughs,
A white and undulating pall
O'er hillock and o'er meadow throws.
The channel of the river stilled
As if with eider-down is filled.
The hoar-frost glitters: all rejoice
In mother Winter's strange caprice.
But Tania's heart is not at ease,
Winter's approach she doth not hail
Nor the frost particles inhale
Nor the first snow of winter seize
Her shoulders, breast and face to lave--
Alarm the winter journey gave.
XXIX
The date was fixed though oft postponed,
But ultimately doth approach.
Examined, mended, newly found
Was the old and forgotten coach;
Kibitkas three, the accustomed train,(71)
The household property contain:
Saucepans and mattresses and chairs,
Portmanteaus and preserves in jars,
Feather-beds, also poultry-coops,
Basins and jugs--well! everything
To happiness contributing.
Behold! beside their dwelling groups
Of serfs the farewell wail have given.
Nags eighteen to the door are driven.
[Note 71: In former times, and to some extent the practice still
continues to the present day, Russian families were wont to
travel with every necessary of life, and, in the case of the
wealthy, all its luxuries following in their train. As the
poet complains in a subsequent stanza there were no inns;
and if the simple Larinas required such ample store of creature
comforts the impediments accompanying a great noble on his
journeys may be easily conceived. ]
XXX
These to the coach of state are bound,
Breakfast the busy cooks prepare,
Baggage is heaped up in a mound,
Old women at the coachmen swear.
A bearded postillion astride
A lean and shaggy nag doth ride,
Unto the gates the servants fly
To bid the gentlefolk good-bye.
These take their seats; the coach of state
Leisurely through the gateway glides.
"Adieu! thou home where peace abides,
Where turmoil cannot penetrate,
Shall I behold thee once again? "--
Tattiana tears cannot restrain.
XXXI
The limits of enlightenment
When to enlarge we shall succeed,
In course of time (the whole extent
Will not five centuries exceed
By computation) it is like
Our roads transformed the eye will strike;
Highways all Russia will unite
And form a network left and right;
On iron bridges we shall gaze
Which o'er the waters boldly leap,
Mountains we'll level and through deep
Streams excavate subaqueous ways,
And Christian folk will, I expect,
An inn at every stage erect.
XXXII
But now, what wretched roads one sees,
Our bridges long neglected rot,
And at the stages bugs and fleas
One moment's slumber suffer not.
Inns there are none. Pretentious but
Meagre, within a draughty hut,
A bill of fare hangs full in sight
And irritates the appetite.
Meantime a Cyclops of those parts
Before a fire which feebly glows
Mends with the Russian hammer's blows
The flimsy wares of Western marts,
With blessings on the ditches and
The ruts of his own fatherland.
XXXIII
Yet on a frosty winter day
The journey in a sledge doth please,
No senseless fashionable lay
Glides with a more luxurious ease;
For our Automedons are fire
And our swift troikas never tire;
The verst posts catch the vacant eye
And like a palisade flit by. (72)
The Larinas unwisely went,
From apprehension of the cost,
By their own horses, not the post--
So Tania to her heart's content
Could taste the pleasures of the road.
Seven days and nights the travellers plod.
[Note 72: This somewhat musty joke has appeared in more than one
national costume. Most Englishmen, if we were to replace
verst-posts with milestones and substitute a graveyard for
a palisade, would instantly recognize its Yankee extraction.
In Russia however its origin is as ancient at least as the
reign of Catherine the Second. The witticism ran thus: A
courier sent by Prince Potemkin to the Empress drove so
fast that his sword, projecting from the vehicle, rattled
against the verst-posts as if against a palisade! ]
XXXIV
But they draw near. Before them, lo!
White Moscow raises her old spires,
Whose countless golden crosses glow
As with innumerable fires. (73)
Ah! brethren, what was my delight
When I yon semicircle bright
Of churches, gardens, belfries high
Descried before me suddenly!
Moscow, how oft in evil days,
Condemned to exile dire by fate,
On thee I used to meditate!
Moscow! How much is in the phrase
For every loyal Russian breast!
How much is in that word expressed!
[Note 73: The aspect of Moscow, especially as seen from the Sparrow
Hills, a low range bordering the river Moskva at a short distance
from the city, is unique and splendid. It possesses several domes
completely plated with gold and some twelve hundred spires most of
which are surmounted by a golden cross. At the time of sunset they
seem literally tipped with flame. It was from this memorable spot
that Napoleon and the Grand Army first obtained a glimpse at the
city of the Tsars. There are three hundred and seventy churches in
Moscow. The Kremlin itself is however by far the most interesting
object to the stranger. ]
XXXV
Lo! compassed by his grove of oaks,
Petrovski Palace! Gloomily
His recent glory he invokes.
Here, drunk with his late victory,
Napoleon tarried till it please
Moscow approach on bended knees,
Time-honoured Kremlin's keys present.
Not so! My Moscow never went
To seek him out with bended head.
No gift she bears, no feast proclaims,
But lights incendiary flames
For the impatient chief instead.
From hence engrossed in thought profound
He on the conflagration frowned. (74)
[Note 74: Napoleon on his arrival in Moscow on the 14th September
took up his quarters in the Kremlin, but on the 16th had to
remove to the Petrovski Palace or Castle on account of the
conflagration which broke out in all quarters of the city. He
however returned to the Kremlin on the 19th September. The Palace
itself is placed in the midst of extensive grounds just outside
the city, on the road to Tver, i. e. to the northwest. It is
perhaps worthy of remark, as one amongst numerous circumstances
proving how extensively the poet interwove his own life-experiences
with the plot of this poem, that it was by this road that he
himself must have been in the habit of approaching Moscow from his
favourite country residence of Mikhailovskoe, in the province of
Pskoff. ]
XXXVI
Adieu, thou witness of our glory,
Petrovski Palace; come, astir!
Drive on! the city barriers hoary
Appear; along the road of Tver
The coach is borne o'er ruts and holes,
Past women, sentry-boxes, rolls,
Past palaces and nunneries,
Lamp-posts, shops, sledges, families,
Bokharians, peasants, beds of greens,
Boulevards, belfries, milliners,
Huts, chemists, Cossacks, shopkeepers
And fashionable magazines,
Balconies, lion's heads on doors,
Jackdaws on every spire--in scores. (75)
[Note 75: The first line refers to the prevailing shape of the
cast-iron handles which adorn the _porte cocheres_. The
Russians are fond of tame birds--jackdaws, pigeons, starlings,
etc. , abound in Moscow and elsewhere. ]
XXXVII
The weary way still incomplete,
An hour passed by--another--till,
Near Khariton's in a side street
The coach before a house stood still.
At an old aunt's they had arrived
Who had for four long years survived
An invalid from lung complaint.
A Kalmuck gray, in caftan rent
And spectacles, his knitting staid
And the saloon threw open wide;
The princess from the sofa cried
And the newcomers welcome bade.
The two old ladies then embraced
And exclamations interlaced.
XXXVIII
"Princesse, mon ange! "--"Pachette! "--
"Aline! "
"Who would have thought it? As of yore!
Is it for long? "--"Ma chere cousine! "
"Sit down. How funny, to be sure!
'Tis a scene of romance, I vow! "
"Tania, my eldest child, you know"--
"Ah! come, Tattiana, come to me!
Is it a dream, and can it be?
Cousin, rememb'rest Grandison? "
"What! Grandison? "--"Yes, certainly! "
"Oh! I remember, where is he? "--
"Here, he resides with Simeon.
He called upon me Christmas Eve--
His son is married, just conceive! "
XXXIX
"And he--but of him presently--
To-morrow Tania we will show,
What say you? to the family--
Alas! abroad I cannot go.
See, I can hardly crawl about--
But you must both be quite tired out!
Let us go seek a little rest--
Ah! I'm so weak--my throbbing breast!
Oppressive now is happiness,
Not only sorrow--Ah! my dear,
Now I am fit for nothing here.
In old age life is weariness! "
Then weeping she sank back distressed
And fits of coughing racked her chest.
XL
By the sick lady's gaiety
And kindness Tania was impressed,
But, her own room in memory,
The strange apartment her oppressed:
Repose her silken curtains fled,
She could not sleep in her new bed.
The early tinkling of the bells
Which of approaching labour tells
Aroused Tattiana from her bed.
The maiden at her casement sits
As daylight glimmers, darkness flits,
But ah! discerns nor wood nor mead--
Beneath her lay a strange courtyard,
A stable, kitchen, fence appeared.
XLI
To consanguineous dinners they
Conduct Tattiana constantly,
That grandmothers and grandsires may
Contemplate her sad reverie.
We Russians, friends from distant parts
Ever receive with kindly hearts
And exclamations and good cheer.
"How Tania grows! Doth it appear"
"Long since I held thee at the font--
Since in these arms I thee did bear--
And since I pulled thee by the ear--
And I to give thee cakes was wont? "--
Then the old dames in chorus sing,
"Oh! how our years are vanishing! "
XLII
But nothing changed in them is seen,
All in the good old style appears,
Our dear old aunt, Princess Helene,
Her cap of tulle still ever wears:
Luceria Lvovna paint applies,
Amy Petrovna utters lies,
Ivan Petrovitch still a gaby,
Simeon Petrovitch just as shabby;
Pelagie Nikolavna has
Her friend Monsieur Finemouche the same,
Her wolf-dog and her husband tame;
Still of his club he member was--
As deaf and silly doth remain,
Still eats and drinks enough for twain.
XLIII
Their daughters kiss Tattiana fair.
In the beginning, cold and mute,
Moscow's young Graces at her stare,
Examine her from head to foot.
They deem her somewhat finical,
Outlandish and provincial,
A trifle pale, a trifle lean,
But plainer girls they oft had seen.
Obedient then to Nature's law,
With her they did associate,
Squeeze tiny hands and osculate;
Her tresses curled in fashion saw,
And oft in whispers would impart
A maiden's secrets--of the heart.
XLIV
Triumphs--their own or those of friends--
Hopes, frolics, dreams and sentiment
Their harmless conversation blends
With scandal's trivial ornament.
Then to reward such confidence
Her amorous experience
With mute appeal to ask they seem--
But Tania just as in a dream
Without participation hears,
Their voices nought to her impart
And the lone secret of her heart,
Her sacred hoard of joy and tears,
She buries deep within her breast
Nor aught confides unto the rest.
XLV
Tattiana would have gladly heard
The converse of the world polite,
But in the drawing-room all appeared
To find in gossip such delight,
Speech was so tame and colourless
Their slander e'en was weariness;
In their sterility of prattle,
Questions and news and tittle-tattle,
No sense was ever manifest
Though by an error and unsought--
The languid mind could smile at nought,
Heart would not throb albeit in jest--
Even amusing fools we miss
In thee, thou world of empty bliss.
XLVI
In groups, official striplings glance
Conceitedly on Tania fair,
And views amongst themselves advance
Unfavourable unto her.
But one buffoon unhappy deemed
Her the ideal which he dreamed,
And leaning 'gainst the portal closed
To her an elegy composed.
Also one Viazemski, remarking
Tattiana by a poor aunt's side,
Successfully to please her tried,
And an old gent the poet marking
By Tania, smoothing his peruke,
To ask her name the trouble took. (76)
[Note 76: One of the obscure satirical allusions contained in this
poem. Doubtless the joke was perfectly intelligible to the
_habitues_ of contemporary St. Petersburg society. Viazemski of
course is the poet and prince, Pushkin's friend. ]
XLVII
But where Melpomene doth rave
With lengthened howl and accent loud,
And her bespangled robe doth wave
Before a cold indifferent crowd,
And where Thalia softly dreams
And heedless of approval seems,
Terpsichore alone among
Her sisterhood delights the young
(So 'twas with us in former years,
In your young days and also mine),
Never upon my heroine
The jealous dame her lorgnette veers,
The connoisseur his glances throws
From boxes or from stalls in rows.
XLVIII
To the assembly her they bear.
There the confusion, pressure, heat,
The crash of music, candles' glare
And rapid whirl of many feet,
The ladies' dresses airy, light,
The motley moving mass and bright,
Young ladies in a vasty curve,
To strike imagination serve.
'Tis there that arrant fops display
Their insolence and waistcoats white
And glasses unemployed all night;
Thither hussars on leave will stray
To clank the spur, delight the fair--
And vanish like a bird in air.
XLIX
Full many a lovely star hath night
And Moscow many a beauty fair:
Yet clearer shines than every light
The moon in the blue atmosphere.
And she to whom my lyre would fain,
Yet dares not, dedicate its strain,
Shines in the female firmament
Like a full moon magnificent.
Lo! with what pride celestial
Her feet the earth beneath her press!
Her heart how full of gentleness,
Her glance how wild yet genial!
Enough, enough, conclude thy lay--
For folly's dues thou hadst to pay.
L
Noise, laughter, bowing, hurrying mixt,
Gallop, mazurka, waltzing--see!
A pillar by, two aunts betwixt,
Tania, observed by nobody,
Looks upon all with absent gaze
And hates the world's discordant ways.
'Tis noisome to her there: in thought
Again her rural life she sought,
The hamlet, the poor villagers,
The little solitary nook
Where shining runs the tiny brook,
Her garden, and those books of hers,
And the lime alley's twilight dim
Where the first time she met with _him_.
LI
Thus widely meditation erred,
Forgot the world, the noisy ball,
Whilst from her countenance ne'er stirred
The eyes of a grave general.
Both aunts looked knowing as a judge,
Each gave Tattiana's arm a nudge
And in a whisper did repeat:
"Look quickly to your left, my sweet! "
"The left? Why, what on earth is there? "--
"No matter, look immediately.
There, in that knot of company,
Two dressed in uniform appear--
Ah! he has gone the other way"--
"Who? Is it that stout general, pray? "--
LII
Let us congratulations pay
To our Tattiana conquering,
And for a time our course delay,
That I forget not whom I sing.
Let me explain that in my song
"I celebrate a comrade young
And the extent of his caprice;
O epic Muse, my powers increase
And grant success to labour long;
Having a trusty staff bestowed,
Grant that I err not on the road. "
Enough! my pack is now unslung--
To classicism I've homage paid,
Though late, have a beginning made. (77)
[Note 77: Many will consider this mode of bringing the canto
to a conclusion of more than doubtful taste. The poet evidently
aims a stroke at the pedantic and narrow-minded criticism to
which original genius, emancipated from the strait-waistcoat of
conventionality, is not unfrequently subjected. ]
End of Canto The Seventh
CANTO THE EIGHTH
The Great World
'Fare thee well, and if for ever,
Still for ever fare thee well. '--Byron
Canto the Eighth
[St. Petersburg, Boldino, Tsarskoe Selo, 1880-1881]
I
In the Lyceum's noiseless shade
As in a garden when I grew,
I Apuleius gladly read
But would not look at Cicero.
'Twas then in valleys lone, remote,
In spring-time, heard the cygnet's note
By waters shining tranquilly,
That first the Muse appeared to me.
Into the study of the boy
There came a sudden flash of light,
The Muse revealed her first delight,
Sang childhood's pastimes and its joy,
Glory with which our history teems
And the heart's agitated dreams.
II
And the world met her smilingly,
A first success light pinions gave,
The old Derjavine noticed me,
And blest me, sinking to the grave. (78)
Then my companions young with pleasure
In the unfettered hours of leisure
Her utterances ever heard,
And by a partial temper stirred
And boiling o'er with friendly heat,
They first of all my brow did wreathe
And an encouragement did breathe
That my coy Muse might sing more sweet.
O triumphs of my guileless days,
How sweet a dream your memories raise!
[Note 78: This touching scene produced a lasting impression on
Pushkin's mind. It took place at a public examination at
the Lyceum, on which occasion the boy poet produced a poem. The
incident recalls the "Mon cher Tibulle" of Voltaire and the
youthful Parny (see Note 42). Derjavine flourished during the
reigns of Catherine the Second and Alexander the First. His
poems are stiff and formal in style and are not much thought of
by contemporary Russians. But a century back a very infinitesimal
endowment of literary ability was sufficient to secure imperial
reward and protection, owing to the backward state of the empire.
Stanza II properly concludes with this line, the remainder having
been expunged either by the author himself or the censors. I have
filled up the void with lines from a fragment left by the author
having reference to this canto. ]
III
Passion's wild sway I then allowed,
Her promptings unto law did make,
Pursuits I followed of the crowd,
My sportive Muse I used to take
To many a noisy feast and fight,
Terror of guardians of the night;
And wild festivities among
She brought with her the gift of song.
Like a Bacchante in her sport
Beside the cup she sang her rhymes
And the young revellers of past times
Vociferously paid her court,
And I, amid the friendly crowd,
Of my light paramour was proud.
IV
But I abandoned their array,
And fled afar--she followed me.
How oft the kindly Muse away
Hath whiled the road's monotony,
Entranced me by some mystic tale.
How oft beneath the moonbeams pale
Like Leonora did she ride(79)
With me Caucasian rocks beside!
How oft to the Crimean shore
She led me through nocturnal mist
Unto the sounding sea to list,
Where Nereids murmur evermore,
And where the billows hoarsely raise
To God eternal hymns of praise.
[Note 79: See Note 30, "Leonora," a poem by Gottfried Augustus
Burger, b. 1748, d. 1794. ]
V
Then, the far capital forgot,
Its splendour and its blandishments,
In poor Moldavia cast her lot,
She visited the humble tents
Of migratory gipsy hordes--
And wild among them grew her words--
Our godlike tongue she could exchange
For savage speech, uncouth and strange,
And ditties of the steppe she loved.
But suddenly all changed around!
Lo! in my garden was she found
And as a country damsel roved,
A pensive sorrow in her glance
And in her hand a French romance.
VI
Now for the first time I my Muse
Lead into good society,
Her steppe-like beauties I peruse
With jealous fear, anxiety.
Through dense aristocratic rows
Of diplomats and warlike beaux
And supercilious dames she glides,
Sits down and gazes on all sides--
Amazed at the confusing crowd,
Variety of speech and vests,
Deliberate approach of guests
Who to the youthful hostess bowed,
And the dark fringe of men, like frames
Enclosing pictures of fair dames.
VII
Assemblies oligarchical
Please her by their decorum fixed,
The rigour of cold pride and all
Titles and ages intermixed.
But who in that choice company
With clouded brow stands silently?
Unknown to all he doth appear,
A vision desolate and drear
Doth seem to him the festal scene.
Doth his brow wretchedness declare
Or suffering pride? Why is he there?
Who may he be? Is it Eugene?
Pray is it he? It is the same.
"And is it long since back he came?
VIII
"Is he the same or grown more wise?
Still doth the misanthrope appear?
He has returned, say in what guise?
What is his latest character?
What doth he act? Is it Melmoth,(80)
Philanthropist or patriot,
Childe Harold, quaker, devotee,
Or other mask donned playfully?
Or a good fellow for the nonce,
Like you and me and all the rest? --
But this is my advice, 'twere best
Not to behave as he did once--
Society he duped enow. "
"Is he known to you? "--"Yes and No. "
[Note 80: A romance by Maturin. ]
IX
Wherefore regarding him express
Perverse, unfavourable views?
Is it that human restlessness
For ever carps, condemns, pursues?
Is it that ardent souls of flame
By recklessness amuse or shame
Selfish nonentities around?
That mind which yearns for space is bound?
And that too often we receive
Professions eagerly for deeds,
That crass stupidity misleads,
That we by cant ourselves deceive,
That mediocrity alone
Without disgust we look upon?
X
Happy he who in youth was young,
Happy who timely grew mature,
He who life's frosts which early wrung
Hath gradually learnt to endure;
By visions who was ne'er deranged
Nor from the mob polite estranged,
At twenty who was prig or swell,
At thirty who was married well,
At fifty who relief obtained
From public and from private ties,
Who glory, wealth and dignities
Hath tranquilly in turn attained,
And unto whom we all allude
As to a worthy man and good!
